But Judge Michael Topolski QC said the risk Syed posed warranted a discretionary life sentence and ordered him to serve a minimum of 16 and a half years.

Judge Topolski said: “Overall you were, and you remained intent upon and committed to, carrying out an act of mass murder in this country. You were not lured, you were not enticed, you were not entrapped.

“You became, and in my judgment as shown by your online activities away from your contact with Abu Yusuf, deeply committed to the ideology of a brutal and barbaric organisation that sought to hijack and corrupt an ancient and venerable religion for its own purposes and you wanted to be part of it.”

A court artist sketch of Haroon Syed's brother Nadir (centre) at his trial where he was found guilty of plotting a terror attack around Remembrance Day last year (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Judge Topolski told Syed that he had been vulnerable and susceptible to radicalisation.

But he added: “Once you had found this new place to be, this stopped being a game, if it ever was one, and became something deadly serious.

“As you told the imam, you wanted to believe it was Daesh, you wanted to be a part of it. It made you feel like a man.”